MacAllister's Baby (14 page)

Elisabeth stirred, and stretched herself against him like a lazy cat. The movement arched her belly against him, curved her spine back so he could see the rosy tips of her breasts.

Angus felt something a lot stronger than caffeine in his blood.

The sleep wasn’t all he needed.

He put his hand on the curve of her hip, pulled her more snugly against what was rapidly turning into a raging erection, and sighed in pleasure.

Elisabeth opened her eyes. They were brown and clear and gorgeous.

‘Hi,’ she said, her voice still husky with sleep. Then her eyes widened, and she pushed herself up on one elbow.

‘Oh, my God. Did I fall asleep right in the middle of everything?’

He nodded, and she blushed bright pink.

‘I am so, so sorry, Angus. I don’t know why—It wasn’t—I must have been tired—’

And he loved it when she couldn’t get the words right. He kissed her lips. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I was tired too. And I enjoyed sleeping with you.’

Her mouth twitched with humour. ‘Is that the literal sleeping with me, or the euphemistic sleeping with me?’

‘Both. Though we haven’t really completed the euphemism yet.’

Her smile grew. ‘I’m so relieved to hear you say that. I would’ve hated to have missed out on anything while I was asleep.’ Her hands went to his shirt, started unbuttoning.

He feigned outrage. ‘Elisabeth, believe me, if we’d been doing the euphemism, you’d have been wide awake and shouting my name to the rooftops.’

‘You are so arrogant.’ She pushed his shirt from his shoulders and laid a warm kiss on his chest. Her hair brushed his bare skin.

‘Check your dictionary, teacher. It’s not arrogance if it’s the truth.’

Her palms ran up and down his ribcage. ‘I think you should check your own dictionary, Chef. Because last time I looked the entry for “super stud” didn’t have the words “falls asleep in his clothes” in it.’

‘Blasted English teachers,’ he muttered roughly. Her teasing talk was building his desire as much as her curious hands. ‘If you have some marking or lesson planning to do, I could drive you home right now.’

Her fingers paused at the button of his trousers. ‘Do you really want me to call your bluff on that one, Angus?’

‘No. No, I don’t.’

She smiled. ‘Good.’ With deft fingers she unfastened his trousers and pushed them down over his hips. Angus reached down and helped her, taking off his boxer shorts and kicking off his socks while he was at it.

Naked with Elisabeth. At last. He reached for her.

She beat him to it, putting her palms on his shoulders and pushing him over onto his back. She straddled his legs.

He took her in, her elegant collar-bone and shoulders, her beautiful breasts, her softly curved stomach and hips. He’d looked his fill last night, but he still wanted more.

He saw the contrast between her pale feminine body and his harder planes; the soft strength of her thighs and his jutting arousal. She was looking at him, too; her eyes were wide and full of passion. He groaned and raised his hands to touch her breasts, to pull her down and taste her.

The phone rang.

Of course, he had an extension by his bed. Just in the unlikely case that he happened to be sleeping when somebody needed him.

It rang again. His restaurant, his publisher, the BBC, any one of dozens of people to whom he owed his success and his fame.

With one hand, he held Elisabeth in place on top of him while he twisted his torso to the left. With the other, he reached over the side of the bed to the telephone.

By feel, he found the cord connecting the phone to the socket. And ripped it out of the wall.

‘Sorry about that.’ He smiled up at her, settling onto his back again. ‘Where were we?’

‘About here, I think.’ She put her hand down and wrapped her fingers around his erection.

Oh, good Lord.

Angus had spent a great deal of his adult life in search of physical pleasure. The most exquisite smells, the most satisfying textures and tastes. The full-body rush of adrenaline that came from working hard and succeeding.

This simple touch, five fingers of a delicate hand on his skin, surpassed them all.

She caressed up his length, and he wouldn’t’ve thought it possible but he felt himself growing still harder. She bent down to him and he seized the back of her head, pulled her to him and kissed her more hungrily than he’d ever kissed any woman. Relishing the sensation of her breasts on his chest, her legs around him.

‘Where’s the condom?’ she gasped when they parted.

He reached to the side again, this time to open the bedside drawer and feel out a packet. She took it from his hand, opened it, and stroked the condom onto him.

He watched her face as she positioned herself over him and guided him into her, inch by exciting inch. Her mouth was open, wet from his kiss, curled in half a wondering smile; her eyelids fluttered in pleasure.

She felt it as intensely as he did, how perfectly their bodies fit together. She was tight and hot around him. Quite simply the most thrilling sensation he had ever experienced.

Except when she began to move on him, and it got even better.

‘Oh, Elisabeth, oh, darling,’ he muttered as he let his hands explore her. Her hands still rested on his shoulders, holding him down, holding her up. She set the pace for their movements, leisurely enough to feel every nuance of pleasure, quick enough to show how desperate she was for him, too, and Angus realised with a smile that Elisabeth was taking back the control she had abandoned to him the night before.

And the heat was building, her movements becoming by small degrees wilder. He dug his heels into the bed and met her, thrust for thrust, so deep inside her he felt as if he were part of her.

He remembered her orgasm the night before, how powerfully she had contracted around his hand, how her face had looked when she came. He slipped a hand between their bodies and found her clitoris, and gasped with her when he felt her jolt of pleasure with his own body.

Two more thrusts, a small flicker of his thumb, and her hands fisted on his shoulders. She threw back her head and let out a wordless cry as he felt her shudder around him.

And even better. With her body enveloping him, moving to the rhythm of his own blood, her scent in his nostrils, cinnamon and sweet woman, her taste on his lips, his hands full of Elisabeth, he felt his climax rip through his body.

‘Elisabeth!’ he yelled, and raised his hips from the bed to thrust deep, one last amazing time. Every fibre of him. With her.

She collapsed forward onto him and he wrapped his arms around her. Held her so close he couldn’t tell whose heartbeat he felt.

And then realised that she was giggling.

‘What?’ He pushed her hair back from her face so he could see her smile.

‘You shouted my name to the rooftops,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘You always win, don’t you?’ He kissed her, and again. ‘I think you’re fantastic.’

‘Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.’

She wiggled off him so she was lying beside him and he watched her, fascinated by the movement of her hips, torso, breasts. She propped herself up on her elbow and he could see that she, too, was looking at his body, desire still in her eyes.

‘I think you broke your phone,’ she said.

‘Not important,’ he said. ‘Elisabeth, I love looking at you naked.’

She nodded. ‘You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I think I might make you get up and walk around for me in a minute so I can appreciate you.’

‘In a minute.’ He captured her mouth in another kiss.

Her stomach growled loudly.

Elisabeth giggled again, and put her hand on her stomach. ‘Oops. Guess I’m hungry for food, too.’

‘Good. I’ll make us breakfast.’ He planted a last kiss on her cheek, a final caress of her arm, before he stood up and disposed of the condom. Elisabeth lay there in bed watching him. She looked rumpled, satisfied, breathtaking, her dark hair spread on his pillow, her tall body relaxed.

He took his time walking to the closet to get some clothes, enjoying her eyes on him. When he got there he glanced back over his shoulder at her. Snagged a robe and a pair of jeans, did a catwalk turn, and went back to the bedside.

She was grinning. ‘Modest, aren’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘Hey, if you’ve got it, you might as well use it. I was voted fifth best Rear of the Year by
Celeb Monthly
magazine.’

‘You should have won.’

‘I would have, if they’d allowed me to take my chef whites off in the photo shoot.’ He winked at her and pulled on his jeans.

‘You’re incorrigible.’

‘And that’s exactly what you like about me.’ He nodded towards the robe he’d laid on the bed beside her. ‘I’ll go and put on the coffee and get some eggs. If you get the shower hot I might join you before I start cooking.’

Angus hummed to himself as he went down the stairs, walked past the phone with its blinking answering machine in his living room, and ground the beans for coffee in his kitchen. The sun was gleaming off every surface of his kitchen, the coffee smelled rich and wonderful, and Angus felt great. Whistling, he unlocked the door to the back garden and stepped into the sunshine.

Even so early in the day, the sun had warmed his herb garden and the aroma rose to meet him as he passed. His two chickens stopped scratching around and came to the end of their run when he approached.

‘Morning MacNugget, Kiev,’ he greeted them and replenished their food and water while they clucked quietly, their feathers bright. While they were busy eating he slipped into their coop and found two still-warm eggs.

Brilliant. This was turning out to be the perfect day all round, he thought as he cut a bunch of fragrant herbs in the garden. He would put out two mugs ready for coffee, lose the jeans, and go upstairs to join Elisabeth in the shower.

He was so pleased with his plan that he didn’t spot the tall blonde woman standing in his kitchen drinking his coffee until he was already inside.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, putting down her cup.

‘Good morning, Christine.’ He set down the eggs and smiled at his publicist. ‘Do help yourself to coffee.’

‘I’ve been ringing you all morning and haven’t been able to get through.’

‘That’s because I haven’t been answering my phone,’ he said pleasantly, feeling his shower plans slipping down the drain. ‘How’d you get in?’

‘You gave me a key for that photo shoot in March, remember? I called Magnum and they hadn’t seen you either. I thought you might be sick.’

‘I’ve never been better in my life.’ He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his bare chest. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m going mad. I’ve got the tabloids ringing me every five minutes trying to confirm these interviews with you, I’ve got a press pack ready to go out waiting for your approval, I’ve got a conference call with Los Angeles this afternoon to talk about syndication for your show, and you’ve gone all anti-communication all of a sudden.’

Angus watched Christine pour herself more coffee and add non-calorie sweetener from her handbag. ‘Don’t any of these people ever take the weekend off?’ he asked.

‘Well, we could have sorted this all out last night if you’d only talked with me. Listen.’ She sat down at his kitchen table.

Angus was listening; he could hear the water running in the upstairs shower. Elisabeth was underneath the spray now, warm drops running down her naked body. He wondered what water would taste like sipped from her skin.

‘So I’ve scheduled you in with the
Herald
on Monday and the
Journal
on Tuesday. But I’m not happy about the deal you agreed with the Slater School. They’re still saying no cameras, not even a five-minute tie-in for your show. You can talk about the contest in the press but you can’t go into detail about the kids. As it stands now, this is a publicity gambit with hardly any publicity attached to it, aside from filming the competition at the end. I’ve been trying to negotiate with the head teacher for the past month and he won’t budge. I’m sorry, Angus, but it’s a waste of your time and mine. You really might as well give it up.’

‘I’m not giving it up.’

Christine glanced at him sharply, surprised by something in his tone.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It’s your time to waste. But if you’re determined not to quit, we might as well make something out of it. I suggest we arrange a tip-off to the press about the kids. Something subtle. They can find the rest out themselves. That way we’ll get better coverage, you can be forced to say something selfless about helping young people, and we can claim we had nothing to do with it.’

Angus thought about what a media spotlight would do to Jennifer’s fledgling confidence. How Danny, who didn’t know how to react to attention, would deal with being in the news.

He thought about the trust that Elisabeth had started to give him.

‘No,’ he said.

Christine’s expression was even more surprised. ‘Okay, you don’t want to go back on an agreement, fair enough. We’ll just do the interviews, and maybe the press will be bright enough to work it out. It wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘No. No interviews at all. I’m not talking to the press until this competition is over. I don’t want the competition to be filmed, either. In fact I want to keep as low a profile as possible.’

Christine frowned. ‘Angus, what’s going on with you? When you hired me, you said you wanted to be the best-known chef of your generation. You said you’d do anything as long as it didn’t get in the way of your cooking.’

‘Well, my priorities have changed.’ He opened a cupboard and got out an omelette pan. ‘It’s great seeing you, Christine, but I’ve got a guest for breakfast, so—’

‘Where were you? I was looking forward to soaping—oh.’

The startled voice came from the doorway, where Elisabeth stood wrapped in his robe, her hair wet and her cheeks flushed. ‘I’m sorry, I thought—’

‘Elisabeth.’ Angus went to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Darling, this is Christine Butler, my publicist, who dropped in for a moment. Christine, this is Elisabeth Read.’